`Every Cuban Lived This Experience'

April 14, 2000|By ANTONIO FINS Business Writer

National and local polls suggest that Cuban-Americans pouring heart and soul into the emotional debate over the fate of 6-year-old EliM-an Gonzalez are out of step with mainstream America. But in Miami, many Cuban-Americans relentlessly insist their cause is a very American one -- and a very personal one, too.

The EliM-an case is more than a custody debate, these Cuban-Americans insist. It is nothing more -- or less -- than another episode in a national diaspora requiring sacrifice and separation in the name of freedom.

Simply put, these Cuban-Americans have an unshakable belief and faith in the political freedoms and economic opportunities available in the United States. And because they escaped the Castro government, because they got away, they feel they are indebted to helping others get away, too.

"The reality is that every Cuban lived this experience," said Joe Garcia, chairman of the Public Service Commission. "They either raised a child, or knew someone raised by someone else, or were raised by someone else because they escaped, because they got out. And that you cannot forget. Because you escaped, you cannot accept that they would send this boy back."

Garcia was born in the United States. But he tells how his parents, barely adults themselves, left Cuba in the early 1960s with another family member, a 12-year-old cousin. In Miami, they cared for the boy until the family was later reunited.

Mixed emotions

Yet, it is a mistake to think all Cuban-Americans are of one mind on the EliM-an debate. Many are torn by the prospect of separating him from his father, which appears to be the price of obtaining safe harbor for the boy in South Florida. For non-Cubans, this proposition seems irrational and unjustifiable.

Garcia concedes that while family divisions and the separation of children from parents is all too often a part of the Cuban-American experience, it is an aspect of their saga that many people outside Miami don't understand.

"This boy's mother died trying to escape, to bring him to freedom and to a better life," Garcia said. "It's hard for those of us in this country to understand that because we don't go through that kind of a challenge, we don't face that kind of a risk everyday. But for those who did, and escaped, they understand what it means, what the difference is, and why they need to make themselves heard."

Cuban-Americans also point out that the EliM-an story, as tragic and public as it is, is not atypical. During the 1960s, about 14,000 Cuban children were sent alone to the United States by parents who wanted them to grow up outside the island. Some Pedro Pan children never saw their parents again, and it took many years to reunify others with their parents. In recent years, some of the children, now middle-aged adults, recounted the pain they suffered from the abrupt and prolonged separation from their families.

Salesman Emilio Subil, 51, was one of the Pedro Pan children. He arrived in the United States alone as a teenager in 1962.

"We were in a way little EliM-ans," he said, adding that he knows firsthand the heartache in being distanced from one's parents at a young age.

Asked why he now supports the boy's separation from his father, Subil took a business card out of his pocket. On the back he had written, "No one, not even a father has the right to enslave another human being."

Others share similar memories.

Corporate lawyer Hector Formoso-Murias, 36, of Miami, was the same age as the doe-eyed EliM-an when he, a cousin and his mother, who was pregnant with another son, arrived in the United States back in 1970. They left Formoso-Murias' father behind. It took 21 years for the elder Formoso-Murias to join his sons, already grown men, in Miami.

"I see every Cuban-American in this kid," Formoso-Murias said. "My father signed the papers authorizing me to leave because he wanted me to be free. We understand that kind of sacrifice. There were so many other families that were divided that way."

There still are.

Lawyer Sofia Powell, who represents the Brothers to the Rescue organization, said the EliM-an case is just one of many unresolved custody cases. Today, she said, hundreds of Cubans in the United States are trying to bring their children to live with them here. Powell said that the Castro government does not permit the children to leave the island.

"Why doesn't the Clinton administration take such a personal interest in these cases?" she asked.

Truth lies hidden

There is another peculiarly post-Cuban Revolution trait that advocates for keeping EliM-an in Miami say must also be considered -- Cubans' mastery of what is known as "doble moral." The Spanish term refers to the practice in Cuba of parroting the party line to camouflage one's most inner feelings.